Marguerite Hohenberg & Medard Klein:

The Guggenheim Years

August 14th - September 13th, 2015

Marguerite Hohenberg and Medard Klein were two visionary early 20th Century abstractionists, each of whom were committed to Chicago as their adopted hometown even as they achieved success exhibiting in museums like the Guggenheim in New York City. Hohenberg arrived in Chicago as a young Austrian immigrant at the turn of the century, later attending the University of Chicago and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. Klein moved from Appleton, Wisconsin in 1926 as a twenty-one-year-old determined to become an artist. However, both Hohenberg and Klein’s commitment to abstraction and its ideals extended far beyond their Chicago community.

In the 1940s, Hohenberg and Klein exhibited frequently at the new Museum of Non-Objective Painting in New York City. Hohenberg showed there at least three times from 1941-1946, and Klein exhibited at the Museum between 1943-1950 on at least seven separate occasions. This experimental and exceedingly influential exhibition space aimed to bring abstract art to the attention of an American audience. As the initial director and curator Hilla Rebay wrote, these paintings were meant to “elevate into the cosmic beyond...They help one to forget earth and its troubles as most people do when they are looking up into the vastness of the star lit sky.” The Museum of Non-Objective Painting would later expand its collection, commission an innovative spiral-shaped building by Frank Lloyd Wright, and take on the name of its founder, becoming what is now known as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Hohenberg and Klein’s association with the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, which also exhibited the work of European artists like Wassily Kandinsky, László Moholy-Nagy, Fernand Leger, Josef Albers, and Pablo Picasso, contributed to their continued artistic development and professional success during the 1940s and 1950s. Hohenberg would receive a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago, and open her own gallery on Oak Street in Chicago. Klein began showing his work at major museums across the country, including the Brooklyn Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, in addition to participating in influential exhibitions like “Abstract and Surrealist American Art” at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1947.

While the Guggenheim Museum today exhibits a much wider spectrum of Modern and Contemporary art than in the 1940s, its origin as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting exerted a strong influence on the trajectory of American art. Hohenberg and Klein were dedicated contributors to these early exhibitions, committed to their simultaneous roles as Chicago artists and as champions of an evolving American abstract art.

1) Hilla Rebay's quotation is from "Non-Objectivity is the Realm of the Spirit," 1945, as cited in “The Museum of Non-Objective Painting: American Abstract Art,” (New York: Snyder Fine Art, 1996).

Marguerite Hohenberg

American, 1883 - 1972

Completion (Chronological #213), 1943

Gouache on paper

21 1/2 x 21 inches

Signed with monogram lower left; signed, stamped, titled and dated on reverse.

#7743

SOLD

Marguerite Hohenberg

American, 1883 - 1972

Chronological #255, ca. 1945

Gouache on paper

21 x 21 inches

Signed with monogram center left; titled on mat.

#7745

Marguerite Hohenberg

American, 1883 - 1972

Chronological #201, 1942

Gouache on paper

25 3/4 x 16 inches

Signed with monogram lower left; signed, titled and dated on reverse.

#7742

Marguerite Hohenberg

American, 1883 - 1972

Chronological #110, 1936

Gouache on paper

18 x 12 inches

Signed with monogram upper left; titled and dated on reverse.

#7740

Marguerite Hohenberg

American, 1883 - 1972

Chronological #145B, 1936

Gouache on paper

18 x 12 inches

Signed with monogram upper left; signed, titled and dated on reverse.

#7741

Marguerite Hohenberg

American, 1883 - 1972

Chronological #182, 1941

Gouache on paper

17 x 17 1/2 inches

Signed with monogram upper left; signed, titled and dated on reverse.

#7744

Medard Klein

American, 1905 - 2002

Untitled (Black and White), 1942

Gouache on paper

20 x 25 inches

Signed and dated Klein ‘42 lower right.

#7818

Medard Klein

American, 1905 - 2002

Lithograph #27, ca. 1945

Lithograph on paper

10 x 14 inches

Signed and titled in pencil; signed and titled on label on reverse (Edition, 8/12).

#7747

Medard Klein

American, 1905 - 2002

Silverpoint Drawing #11, 1948

Silverpoint and burnished gold leaf on paper

10 x 13 inches

Signed and dated Klein ‘48 lower right; titled on reverse.

#7789

Medard Klein

American, 1905 - 2002

Lithograph #14, 1945

Lithograph on paper

15 1/2 x 12 inches

Signed, titled, dated and numbered in pencil

#7767

Medard Klein

American, 1905 - 2002

Lumiprint, ca. 1945

Ink on acetate

9 3/4 x 12 1/2 inches

#7782

Medard Klein

American, 1905 - 2002

Lumiprint, ca. 1945

Ink on Acetate

9 3/4 x 12 1/2 inches

#7780

Medard Klein

American, 1905 - 2002

Drawing #42, 1945

Graphite on paper

9 x 12 inches

Signed and dated Klein ‘45 lower right; titled on reverse.

#2348

Medard Klein

American, 1905 - 2002

Drawing #45, 1945

Graphite on paper

9 x 12 inches

Signed and dated Klein '45 lower left; titled on reverse.

#2351

Medard Klein

American, 1905 - 2002

Untitled (Abstraction), ca. 1945

Ink and graphite on paper

8 1/2 x 11 inches

#7802

Medard Klein

American, 1905 - 2002

Drawing #7, 1944

Ink and graphite on vellum paper

12 x 17 3/4 inches

Signed and dated lower right: Klein ‘44; titled and numbered on reverse

#7816

Medard Klein

American, 1905 - 2002

Drawing #21, 1945

Ink and graphite on vellum paper

9 3/4 x 15 inches

Signed and dated Klein ‘45 lower right; titled and numbered on reverse.